


Blue Pencil Drowning

by geekprincess26



Series: Blue Pencils [4]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:29:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geekprincess26/pseuds/geekprincess26
Summary: Jon and Sansa face their impending graduation over dessert at Hot Pie's.  A flirtatious waitress brings them face to face with their friendship and its future.





	Blue Pencil Drowning

_Beth Cassel just updated her status._

 

Sansa Stark’s finger idly swiped the Facebook notification on her phone.  Not that she usually used her phone when she was out with Jon Snow or any of their other friends – their discussions always got far more nerdy and interesting and cool than anything that even her new iPhone 8 could offer – but Jon was in the bathroom, and none of their other friends had been able to make dinner at Hot Pie’s that night.  Even Arya, who almost always joined them, had finally agreed to a date that night with Gendry Waters, the junior who had been staring at her with puppy eyes ever since he’d transferred to Casterly Rock Preparatory High School over a year ago.

 

Sansa’s Facebook app opened to reveal her friend Beth’s profile, and she nearly dropped the phone in shock.

 

“Oh, gods _almighty_ ,” she groaned out loud.

 

“What’s that?  World finally end?”

 

Sansa yelped and almost dropped the phone for the second time.  Jon Snow had snuck back into the seat across from her without her hearing a sound. 

 

“Good grief,” she managed after her heart had stopped racing.  “You get scarier every day, you know that?”

 

“Rawr,” replied Jon, so drolly and so un-monster-like that Sansa giggled.  Jon’s face immediately quirked into that lopsided smile of his that never failed to bump even Sansa’s worst moods up by a notch or two.

 

“Anything else I can get for you guys tonight?”

 

Sansa started in her seat.  The blonde waitress who’d been serving them all evening, appeared at their table almost as suddenly as Jon had, and it was to Jon she directed the question, as she had been doing the whole night.  Now she was giving him a smile so cloying, it nearly rotted Sansa’s teeth just to see it.  Jon, however, did not seem to notice.

 

“Triple banana split, please,” he said politely.  The girl’s grin widened, and she scribbled on her order pad with a flourish.

 

“You got it, hon,” she said, and batted her eyelashes at him a few times.  Jon, however, had turned back to his plate to grab the last few French fries adorning it.  The girl pouted for a moment and swished off toward the kitchen.  Sansa swallowed a snort.

 

“So, what happened?” Jon asked once he had swallowed his French fries.  Sansa sighed and turned her phone toward him in answer, so that he could see for himself that Beth, whose Facebook profile was now adorned with a selfie of her and Theon Greyjoy, had just changed her status to _In a relationship_ with none other than Theon himself.

 

Jon frowned, his nose wrinkling as though he’d just realized his French fries were rancid.  It was so adorable that Sansa almost laughed.

 

“Huh,” he said finally.  “Good luck to her, I guess.”

 

“Yeah,” agreed Sansa.  Naturally, she knew Beth’s luck would not be good – everyone at school knew Theon’s reputation for hopping from one girl to another faster than a flea – but she’d thought Beth understood that too.

 

Beth, her only friend left who sometimes hung out with Sansa just to talk rather than to gossip about everyone else’s haircuts or complain about their boyfriends, because, after all, they were two of the only single girls in the senior class.  Beth, the free spirit who made and dyed her own clothes and didn’t care who hung out with whom, who was as talented an artist as she was an average scholar but certainly had the brains to know Theon Greyjoy was not exactly the harmless lost puppy she had seemed to think he was.  Sansa sighed heavily.

 

“It’s just,” she began, then shook her head.  She would not ruin Jon’s evening with more talk of Theon, who had bullied him roundly since Jon had joined their class in the sixth grade.

 

“What?”  Jon’s voice had gone so low, Sansa had to lean in to hear him.  She shrugged and set her phone down on the table with a bit more force than necessary.

 

“What is it?” Jon asked again.  Sansa bit her lip.  She hated it when he used that softened, earnest tone.  It made her stomach lurch and her tongue tingle with the sudden desire to tell him everything.  Instead, she took a deep breath and settled for half the truth.

 

“I just hoped she wouldn’t listen to him,” she finally replied.  “She’s such a nice girl, and she deserves a better boyfriend.”  She stumbled over the last word and blinked back a sudden and very unwelcome rush of tears.  “Even if it means everybody else has one too, now, and...”

 

She dared to look up at Jon, whose head was cocked to one side.  He was frowning, and Sansa was still trying to decipher whether he was still thinking of Theon or whether he thought she was a silly airhead – and a pang shot through her chest at the idea that Jon Snow, who had worked with her on producing countless community theater projects and taught her all about sound waves and physics and who was possibly the smartest person she knew, might think of her as an airhead – when their waitress appeared and set a monstrous bowl of ice cream with bananas, cherries, whipped cream, and every kind of sauce imaginable right in front of Jon.  As she did so, she bent over far enough to put her chest and her name badge, which read DANY in bright red letters, square in front of Jon’s face.

 

“One Triple Banana Split for you,” she said sweetly, flickering her eyelashes at him again.  Jon gave her a small smile.  Another pang shot through Sansa’s chest.

 

“Thanks,” Jon told the waitress, who took her sweet time standing up.  When she turned to leave, she winked over her shoulder at Jon, whose smile neither increased nor decreased.  It was all Sansa could do not to glare at the girl.

 

“Bon appetit.”  Sansa turned back to Jon, who was pushing the blue pencil tucked behind his ear more firmly into place, as he always did before starting a meal or a dessert or a new homework project or a sound test or anything new, really.  She could not help but smile at him as they raised their spoons in unison.

 

“Three, two, one,” they recited, and promptly dug in.  As had become their custom over the past year or two, Sansa pushed the maraschino cherries toward Jon’s side of the bowl Between mouthfuls of ice cream, and he maneuvered spoonfuls of hot fudge sauce over to her side.

 

“So,” Jon said as he captured two cherries with his spoon, “what were you saying about Beth and all?”

 

Sansa’s shoulders slumped, and the mouthful of ice cream she had just licked off her spoon lost its taste.  Nevertheless, she made what she thought was a good show of digesting it before she dared to glance back up at Jon.  That earnest look of his was back.

 

 _Not fair, Jon Snow,_ she wanted to yell, but sighed instead.

 

“It’s – well, I mean, she’s my friend and of course I don’t begrudge her a boyfriend,” she said, lowering her voice to keep the sudden quiver out of it.  “Not that it matters I’m the only single girl in the class, I’m just – she deserves better than Theon, even if I can’t tell her that to spoil her happiness right now, but if it keeps up till she heads for college, I just hope she gets other people around her to tell her that.  I mean, of course I’ll keep in touch with her, it’s just…”  She turned toward the restaurant’s busy front counter to avoid her friend’s gaze.  In three short months, she’d be off at Riverrun University studying art therapy and English, and she couldn’t keep an eye out for Beth because Beth wouldn’t be there, and neither would Arya or Sam or Gilly.  Or Jon.  Sansa took another deep breath, this one as slow as she could make it so she wouldn’t tear up like an idiot.  Once she had regained control, she turned back to Jon.

 

“I mean, I get it,” she continued.  “We’re graduating next week, so of course everyone’s getting boyfriends and going to college and moving on, which is normal and it happens, and they’ll all go to school with their boyfriends, or most of them will, and it’s OK if I don’t have one to go to school with – a boyfriend, I mean – and I get that, because it’ll be better for my studies, and guys don’t go for art nerds – or English nerds – and it’s fine.  It’s fine.”

 

She stabbed her spoon into the bowl to retrieve another scoop of ice cream, this one with extra hot fudge.  Maybe that would soothe her voice, which had suddenly gotten very high-pitched, not to mention whiny.  Gods knew she didn’t want a boyfriend like any of the guys her friends were dating – Joffrey Baratheon, Margaery’s boyfriend, made her skin crawl, and Harry Hardyng, who had been snatched up by Mya Stone, had already dumped her at the school’s Valentine’s Day dance earlier that year.  And she would damn near gouge out her own eyes rather than date Theon Greyjoy. 

 

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt that not even the single guys in their class would look at her twice since Harry had broken up with her, or that surviving the first few weeks of her freshman year at college would be ten times easier if she had someone to attend orientation with her, someone to text her random emojis like Jon did almost every day, someone to commiserate with over their first tests and share loaves of garlic bread in the school cafeteria.

 

Sansa sighed again and gave her head a shake to clear it.  Fantasies sounded pretty in her head, but they sure could mess it up.  Apparently Jon thought so too, because he was now staring at her as though she had two heads.

 

“You’re kidding, right?” he said.  “When you get to school, guys will be lining up around the bloody corner for you.”  His voice lowered again, and he frowned.  “And if you need me to punch any of them out for you, just let me know.”

 

He started to say something else, but stopped and took another bite of ice cream.  He was still frowning, though – almost pouting, really.  It was such an adorable expression that Sansa almost grinned.  Instead, she sat back and raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“Jon Snow,” she teased, “are you offering to defend my honor?”

 

Jon’s cheeks reddened, and he reached behind his head to scratch his neck.  This time Sansa did smile.

 

“If you need me to,” Jon finally said.  When he saw Sansa grinning, he blushed even harder.  Sansa felt her own cheeks heat, and she quickly took another scoop of ice cream and pineapple from the bowl.

 

“Maybe we should talk about girls lining up for you instead of guys lining up for me, then,” she said as airily as she could, “since you’re such a gentleman.”

 

Jon nearly choked on his ice cream.  “Gentleman?” he wheezed, when he could speak again.

 

Sansa’s lips twitched into another smile.  “Well, yes,” she replied, nibbling slowly on her next spoonful of ice cream in hopes that the steady chill would cool down her cheeks.  “I mean, you’re offering to defend my honor.”  She swallowed a mouthful of strawberry sauce and added, “And you’re polite and kind, and you’re always helping Arya and Bran and me with our homework.”

 

The redness on Jon’s cheeks spread to his ears, and he stared intently into the bowl as though trying to find the solution to his hardest calculus problem.  “Not you, really,” he murmured after a moment.  “You don’t really need my help; you’re top in most of your classes anyway.”

 

Sansa rolled her eyes.  “Not maths,” she retorted.  “You’re always helping me with those.  And I don’t feel stupid when you help me,” she added, sure her cheeks must now be nearly as red as Jon’s.  “Girls don’t like it when guys make them feel stupid for not knowing things.  So naturally they’ll line up for you in college, like I was saying.”  She grabbed a scoopful of chocolate ice cream and looked back up at Jon, who was staring her in that nonplussed way he often did when anybody paid him a compliment.  Jon only shook his head.

 

“It’s just community college,” he began.  Sansa jerked her head sideways to stop him.

 

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, surprised by the fierceness that had crept into her tone.  “It’s still college, and there are still lots of hard classes there.  And lots of girls who will like you.  More to line up for you than guys would line up for me.”  She ignored the returning pang in her chest, which for some reason was twice as fierce as it had been before, and added, “You’re way too smart for them not to.  And you’re nice, and kind, and a really good listener.  And – handsome.”  She rescued the last word from her traitorous tongue, which had been about to form the word _hot_ instead, and jabbed her spoon back into the bowl to retrieve as much ice cream as it would hold.  She got a piece of banana, too, which teetered precariously on top of the ice cream for a moment before splashing back into the bowl and spraying flecks of ice cream onto Sansa’s shirt.  No sooner had she let out a startled yelp than Jon’s napkin appeared in front of her.  She grabbed it with a murmured “thanks” and set her spoon down carefully into the bowl.

 

“See?” she said once she had finished cleaning herself up, handing the napkin back to its still red-faced owner.  “You’re a gentleman.  I told you so.”

 

Jon wrinkled his nose.  “Gentleman?  Handsome?  So, what, I’m some kind of prince from the movies or something?”

 

Sansa’s lips twisted into a grin of their own accord.  “Yeah,” she said.  “Well, actually, you’re better.”  She held his disbelieving gaze until the pangs returned and made her eyes drop back to the ice cream.  “I – Plenty of girls have got to be smart enough to see that.  They’ll love you.”

 

Jon’s ears flushed.  “Not likely,” he murmured.  “Don’t need a girlfriend, anyway.”  He shrugged and turned toward the front of the restaurant, where Dany the waitress was showering a table of male customers with her blazing white smile.

 

Sansa’s stomach roiled, and she thanked her lucky stars that she’d passed up that last scoop of ice cream.  Half of her wanted to give Jon her share of the dinner money, even though he’d paid for her at least the last three or four times they’d gone to Hot Pie’s, and slink back home to her bedroom to fret in peace.  But Jon was her friend, perhaps the best one she’d ever had, so she composed herself and turned to him with her most conspiratorial smile firmly pasted onto her face.

 

“But maybe you want one?” she suggested.  Jon whipped back around in her direction with such a flummoxed look on his face that it nearly knocked the smile off of Sansa’s own.  Instead, she shrugged.

 

“I mean,” she said, “if there’s a girl you fancy, you should go for it.  Especially if she’d appreciate you the way she should.”  Her “if” emerged with more intensity than she’d planned, but Jon did not seem to notice.  Instead, the flush, now a deep red, spread all the way down his neck, which did not surprise Sansa.  After all, Jon had barely gotten the nerve to say yes when Alys Karstark, his only girlfriend thus far, had asked him out after weeks of hinting – which had turned out to be the longest part of that relationship.

 

“Doesn’t matter if she’s not interested,” he countered.  Once again, he spoke so quietly that Sansa had to lean forward in her seat to hear him – close enough for her nose to fill with the strange potpourri of pine and salt and soap that she’d caught before on occasion when Jon had crouched next to her to point out a key variable on an algebra problem or reached over to share her fries at Hot Pie’s.  Sansa’s stomach flipped again, but much more pleasantly.  She had to blink several times to bring her focus back to the problem at hand.

 

“But you don’t know unless you ask her, Jon,” she said gently.  She caught her hand just in time from reaching out to settle on top of his, and bit her lip to contain her frustration with her stupid, traitorous body and equally stupid, traitorous wish that Jon would fold his own hand over hers and stroke it with his thumb. 

 

“For all you know,” she made herself continue, holding her head stiffly upright, “she’d say yes.  And if she doesn’t – well, then, she doesn’t deserve you after all if she doesn’t see how wonderful and kind and smart and lovely you are, and  – ”  She barely bit back the word _I_ , which had been perched precariously on the tip of her tongue.  “Another girl will see it anyway.”

 

Tears pricked at the back of her eyes again, and, deciding that stopping them was more important than calming her stomach, she grabbed her spoon again and dug out the piece of banana she’d dropped from her last scoop.

 

“Doesn’t matter if she deserves better,” Jon mumbled, concentrating ferociously on scooping up as many maraschino cherries as his own spoon would hold.

 

Sansa stared at him.  “Better than you?” she asked when she had swallowed enough of the banana to speak intelligibly again.  “That’s not possible.”  She tilted her head toward Dany, who was busily clearing the table the two male customers had just vacated.  “If it’s her you fancy, she won’t say no anyhow; I’ll even talk to her for you, if you want.”

 

Jon coughed so loudly over his cherries, Sansa was surprised the waitress did not hear him.  As it was, she had to pat him on the back several times before he took a gulp of water and signaled that he was all right.

 

“Good gods, not her,” he spluttered.  “It’s – it’s – never mind, Sansa, you wouldn’t – besides, like I said, you’ve got – you – you’d get tons of blokes lined up for you – you’re too smart and you help people all the time and you’re graduating top of your class anyway – and you’re beautiful, and – you’ll be fine.  Never mind about me.  I – it’s fine.”

 

The tips of his ears had gone from cherry red to bright violet as he stared down at the bowl.  Sansa, unable to speak or move or do anything other than stare at him, watched fascinated as one of his dark curls fell out of the rubber band he’d used to secure them away from his face, then flew back as he glanced up at her for a brief moment.  His eyes were as wide as saucers and as soft as the melting ice cream on the table beneath them, and Sansa’s stomach roiled and then expanded with the tickling anticipation she’d felt earlier, and then dropped again with his eyes as he turned back to the bowl.

 

“Jon?”  His name escaped from her lips despite her efforts to hold it back.  He raised his head again, and his spoon clattered unheeded back into the bowl.  He wore the same look he had when he’d offered to take her to the Valentine’s Day dance right after Harry had dumped her, and again after he’d won the chess tournament after she’d taken Theon Greyjoy out into the hall and kneed him to stop him from distracting Jon, who had seen them leave and thought Sansa had agreed to go out with Theon until she’d let him know otherwise in no uncertain terms.  She’d seen the kindness and concern both times, but only now did she recognize the hope beneath them, or at least she thought she did.

 

“You – I’m assuming – you didn’t mean me, right?”  She was squeaking now, and Jon’s face fell, and Sansa reached out to cover his hand with her own, and the hope returned tenfold.  Sansa felt her eyes go as wide as his. 

 

“I mean – or, if you did mean me, Jon, I want to know – like I said, just say it,” she finished, almost choking over the last word as both her heart and her stomach leaped into her throat, and her mind churned through images of Jon: Jon, crying outside the boys’ locker room after getting a detention in sixth grade because she hadn’t been brave enough to tell the truth about Theon Greyjoy baiting him; Jon, grinning at the box of blue pencils she’d given him anonymously to try and make up for it; Jon, gathering her up in a comforting hug after Harry Hardyng had dumped her; Jon, grinning so earnestly and so shyly when she’d agreed to go to Hot Pie’s with him after he’d won the chess tournament.  Now Jon stared at her with the deep brown warmth she had always appreciated and liked – well, loved, really, if she had to admit it.  His mouth twitched for a long time before he finally opened it.

 

“I – well, like I said, you’re smart, and you’re this brilliant artist, and you’re really, really kind even if you don’t think you are, and anybody – ” his voice lowered to a growl – “would be bang off his rocker to dump you, ‘cause none of them is good enough for you – well, me neither – and you’re beautiful, even if you think you’re not, Sansa.”  The growl softened, and Jon’s thumb stroked tentatively across the back of her hand, and the tears jumped straight back to Sansa’s eyes.

 

“I – I mean,” Jon continued, “if you want to be just friends, I’m – I’ll always be your friend.  You’re one of the best friends I’ve had.”  He squeezed her hand gently, and Sansa’s lips twisted uncontrollably.  “I just – I really like you, and I fancy you, and I want to go out with you, if you’ll have me.”

 

Sansa’s head whirled, and her eyes froze on Jon’s chest as it expanded and then contracted, and then traveled to his other hand as it inched toward her face.  They closed as his fingertips brushed a strand of her hair back from her eyes, and when his hand settled against her cheek, her stomach spun and her heart flipped and her smile got so wide she was sure her jaw would split open.  She finally opened her eyes again when she felt the warmth of Jon’s forehead leaning against hers, and the sight of his lopsided smile calmed her stomach at once.  His brows were still furrowed, though, just a bit, and she knew the expression well enough to understand the wonderfully sweet and absolutely gentlemanly question behind it.

 

“Of course I’ll have you, you worrywart,” she whispered, and leaned forward until her lips just brushed his, and they were as warm and solid and soft as the rest of him, and the next moment they were closed firmly around hers.  They tasted like the smell of him, only keener and saltier and better than any ice cream split Hot Pie’s or anyone else could possibly cook up.  Sansa rose in her seat to bury her hands in his curls, and he met her halfway to cradle her face and her back, and Dany the waitress had to clear her throat several times before either of them heard her.  They pulled back to see her raising a pointed eyebrow at them both.

 

“Anything else I can get you?” she sighed, her tone suggesting that she was barely keeping herself from gagging.

 

Jon grinned and took Sansa’s hand again.  “Just the check, thanks,” he said as Dany bent to reach for the bowl between them, which now contained a vanilla puddle with a few remnants of sauce swirled through it.  As she stood up, part of the puddle sloshed toward one end of the dish, revealing the stub of a blue pencil.

 

“Oh, Jon – um, excuse me,” Sansa managed, and the waitress turned back to her, eyebrow still very much raised.

 

“He – Jon, your pencil fell out.”  Sansa gestured to the bowl.  Jon looked at it and turned back to her, shrugging.

 

“I’ve got more back at home,” he said, shrugging, and leaned in to kiss the surprised exclamation off of Sansa’s lips.  She giggled into his mouth, earning herself another lopsided smile, before throwing her arms around him and returning the kiss.  It landed just off its target on his lower cheek, and a low, hearty laugh emanated from Jon’s chest.

 

“Sorry,” she said, blushing.  “Still a weirdo at kissing.”

 

Jon pressed a kiss on her forehead, making her blush harder, before he reached down to caress the nape of Sansa’s neck.

 

“Fellow weirdos, remember?” he whispered, and leaned forward to envelop her lips – and her skipping, buzzing heart – with his.

 

-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-

 

_Sansa Stark just updated her status: In a Relationship with Jon Snow._

_Jon Snow just updated his status: In a Relationship with Sansa Stark._


End file.
